https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYx7o2Y_MXc
Note: I was unable to finish my prepared presentation, which was very embarrassing because I pride myself on sticking to schedules like these (mea culpa). I thank the International Commission on Human Rights and Religious Freedom for their understanding. Here is the written presentation I prepared.
US COMMISSION ON INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM HAS BECOME FATALLY FLAWED WITH ANTI-HINDU BIAS
Dr. Richard L. Benkin
Good evening and namashkar.
I’m Dr. Richard Benkin, a human rights activist who has worked on several issues. But no matter what else I’ve done, I’m most closely associated with my fight to stop the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh. In fact, I tell people that winning that struggle is my dharma.
Over the years, this has led me to work in many different ways with the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, or USCIRF, and I have developed some pretty clear conclusions about that body.
· The first is that its creation made a lot of sense. If we really are the bastion of freedom, a beacon of hope for all people; we should dedicate ourselves to helping those denied freedom; and having an agency devoted to that is an important expression of that commitment.
· The second is that USCIRF is hopelessly biased, in particular, against non-Abrahamic faiths. Or to be more accurate, against non-Abrahamic faiths plus the first Abrahamic faith, that being Judaism. As you will see, USCIRF has never recommended sanctions against a state for religious persecution, unless victims included Christians or Muslims. That bias taints all that USCIRF does and calls its conclusions into question—even accurate ones. I don’t like projecting people’s intentions without some solid basis (and we can talk about that later). Even taking the most generous interpretation, however, I find it disconcerting that a high level body can have such a parochial understanding of religion and religious freedom.
· But here’s the good news. In the end, it really doesn’t matter that much. USCIRF hasn’t any teeth. It periodically shakes its fist, and makes recommendations that the State Department frequently ignores. And it also looks away when facts do not fit its narrative. I warrant that most Americans are not even familiar with it, and its conclusions rarely make their way to our media. For the most part, it talks to like-minded others and gets slammed in foreign media for its recommendations. And I want to emphasize again, that USCIRF’s authority extends only to making recommendations, never policy.
And I hope that all changes someday because I do believe that religious freedom is a core value for us all.
My first contact with USCIRF came early this century when I was fighting for the release of a Bangladeshi journalist. He was imprisoned and later tortured for urging Bangladeshi relations with Israel and for exposing the rise of radicalism in Bangladesh, especially through its madrassas or Muslim religious schools; that is, for doing his job. And I want to be clear that this brave man was a Muslim, just in case any of us need reminders that courage and moral strength come in many forms and out of many faiths.
I was new to human rights activism and so grasped at whatever straws I could, doing what I knew; in this case, it only made sense that I look for help from an agency created specifically to promote religious freedom. The people at USCIRF gave me a lot of verbal support, and they made themselves available for quite a few meetings. I appreciated that, but in the end, it didn’t do much. We won that fight and forced the Bangladeshi government to free him only because I figured out what they needed to fear, and none of it was anything USCIRF could do. I worked with the right people in Washington to let them know credibly that what they feared was coming. It also didn’t hurt that I had a member of the US House Appropriations Committee by my side.
The experience taught me a lot. I also learned what it takes for the US or other nations to conclude that international intervention is needed to protect religious freedom. And I want everyone to remember what I’m about to say. According to USCIRF staff—and I heard this more than once from them and elsewhere. Minorities, unfortunately, face attacks pretty much everywhere. What makes it something other than an “internal problem” is what happens next; what the government does about it. If protections are put into place, laws enforced, and so forth; outside parties need to let that country handle things themselves. But if the government either participates in these atrocities, does nothing to the perpetrators, or in no other legal way stops them; then we, the international community have an obligation not to stand by idly. That has been an important distinction I have used throughout my human rights career, and I think it’s a good one.
USCIRF’s Beginnings and Rationale
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom was created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 to monitor the right to freedom of religion or belief outside the United States and to make policy recommendations to the President, Secretary of State, and Congress. The Act “declares it to be U.S. policy to: (1) condemn violations of religious freedom, and to promote, and to assist other governments in the promotion of, the fundamental right to freedom of religion; and (2) seek to channel U.S. security and development assistance to governments that are found not to be engaged in gross violations of the right to freedom of religion.”
That’s a pretty clear statement of what it is. It passed overwhelmingly and with bi-partisan support in both the House and the Senate; and I like what it stands for. We shouldn’t be cozy with regimes that deny their people basic freedoms; and we shouldn’t be silent or sit by idly while people are brutalized or worse just because of who they are. There’s been too much of that, and people still stand by while others are killed. Just get me started talking about the Bangladesh’s ethnic cleansing of Hindus and how the world seems okay with it!
They also did something else to reduce bias. Commissioners would be appointed by leaders of both parties. Three USCIRF commissioners are appointed by the President; two by the Senate leader of the party different from the President’s; one by the Senate leader of the same party as the President; two by the House leader of a different party from the President; one by the House leader of the same party as the President. According to the legislation, these Commissioners “shall be selected among distinguished individuals noted for their knowledge and experience in fields relevant to the issue of international religious freedom, including foreign affairs, direct experience abroad, human rights, and international law.”
Throughout the year, USCIRF staff would visit countries worldwide to gather information; and each year, USCIRF would issue a report recommending that the US State Department declare certain nations countries of particular concern: “those countries that commit systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.” There also are a range of sanctions available to the State Department, although I would not concern myself with that. In almost all cases, when USCIRF’s recommendation is accepted, such countries already are sanctioned or State decides to waive sanctions in the interests of national security. The waiver, by the way, allows the US government to recognize the abuses without taking the sort of action that would hurt its relationship with that country. Saudi Arabia is a good example; Nigeria is another.
What could be bad? It seemed to an overwhelming number of people that this was not just a good idea; it also was the sort of thing that helped the United States reach the level of moral imperative that we claim as our heritage. Someone needs to stand up for people when no one else does; and someone needs to stand up for people when their own government stands up for their brutalization, murder, and even genocide. It’s still a good idea, and a needed one.
USCIRF may have started out as good idea, and as an idea it remains so; but in practice it has failed to live up to its promise, largely because of implicit bias that has nothing to do with partisanship or which party appoints a commissioner. And I want to digress a moment to illustrate exactly what drives it.
I belong to a synagogue of good people who believe in these principles and live that way. One day quite a few years ago, my rabbi came to me beaming about something because he knew it was something that would resonate with me. Each year, the temple dedicates itself to a specific principle and that year it would be interfaith understanding. He was right, it did make me smile, but when I read the plans for it, I said, “Rabbi, I love the idea and am proud to be part of a synagogue that lives these principles; but to be honest, you really need to change the title to Abrahamic interfaith understanding, because all I see are Christianity and Islam, which leaves out a large number of people in the world and even in the Chicago area.” And to his credit, the Rabbi did change the program so that a wide array of religions were included. But the point was made. Even among good people, we Americans often tend to have this underlying assumption that credits only faiths who worship God with a capital G.
In almost a quarter century of existence, USCIRF has never cited a country for persecuting non-Abrahamic faiths. They might gain a mention here and there as an afterthought, but only if USCIRF’s major focus is the persecution of Christians or Muslims. For instance, USCIRF has recommended that Pakistan be declared a country of particular concern 16 times (out of a possible 22 times). If you look hard, you’ll see it mention the persecution of Hindus, but the majority of its focus is on Pakistani Christians. You won’t see anything about how Pakistani Hindus have been reduced to one percent of the population. It has never even mentioned the refugee camps in Nepal for the more than 10 lakh Lhotshampas, Hindus who were forced out of Bhutan by its government. USCIRF really needs to change its name to the “US Commission on International Abrahamic Religious Freedom (except for Jews unless we have to).”
USCIRF’s Sad Record
Let’s look at the record. USCIRF has been making recommendations to the State Department since 2001. Every year, it issues its religious freedom report and recommends the countries that it believes should be designated as countries of particular concern or CPCs. State reviews the recommendations, along with other information, and makes its final decisions some time later. Since 2001, USCIRF has made 281 such recommendations involving 21 countries. Some, like Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, and Laos have been recommended as CPCs only a few times. China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, and Saudi Arabia have been recommended all 22 times. Year after year, the Hindu American Foundation documents the sort of “systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom” that define a CPC in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Fiji, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka.
· Bangladesh, where Hindus face constant attacks, allowed by or initiated by the government and where 12 million more Hindus are not expected to survive their by mid-century;
· Bhutan, which has expelled most of its Hindu population and still refuses to repatriate them, return their property to them, or allow them to re-enter the country
· Fiji, where ethnic tensions and attacks on the Indo-Fijian community flared up after a coup removed the democratically elected government;\
· Malaysia, where ISIS and its ilk have found a new home, with anti-minority policies that have restricted religious freedom and forcibly re-located Hindu temples; and where government officials encourage anti-Hindu sentiment with the government’s tacit approval;
· Sri Lanka, where government authorities continued to discriminate against Tamils and religious minorities and refuse to respond to or prevent religious violence or harassment by non-state actors.
Yet, USCIRF has never recommended any of they be designated a CPC. Not even once. Perhaps it’s because their only victims are Hindus. It’s certainly not for want of evidence.
In its “defense,” such as it is, USCIRF has a second tier of countries that they assess as not as bad as CPCs. Nor are there any consequences or recommended action. It has a “special watch list,” for countries whose religious violations are not “systematic, ongoing, and egregious,” but only two of the three, and it has put Malaysia on that list, though I’m not sure how it figured one of the three wasn’t there. Certainly, the victims couldn’t tell you. Neither could the Hindu victims in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Fiji, and Sri Lanka, who evidently should be grateful for their governments according to USCIRF.
I want to spend the rest of this section focusing on USCIRF’s behavior in regard to two countries: India and Bangladesh, who together capture the extreme bias that is at the core of USCIRF actions. Although they come out of the same bias, each calls for a different response. So, let’s start with India.
In November 2021, USCIRF took the unusual step of issuing a “Fact Sheet,” trying to justify its designation of India and other countries as CPCs; designations that were rejected by the US State Department. And, to be clear, the State Department has rejected almost 40 percent of USCIRF’s CPC recommendations; in some years, almost half. It’s not that long, and I’m going to read the entire statement about India because USCIRF’s words are very revealing.
“In 2020 and early 2021, the Indian government continued to implement policies that impact religious freedom for members of India’s Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Dalit, and Adivasi communities. These policies include the
religiously discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), which provides fast-track citizenship to nonMuslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, and in conjunction with the government’s proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) requiring residents to provide
proof of citizenship, could subject Muslims and others to statelessness, deportation, and prolonged detention. In 2020, nationwide protests against the CAA resulted in deaths and destruction of property, including houses of
worship, largely of Muslims.
“The passage and ongoing enforcement of anti-conversion laws, intermarriage restrictions, and anti-cow slaughter laws in various states throughout India undermine freedom of religion or belief; they also contribute to a climate of hate, intolerance and fear. Government officials and nonstate actors also use social media and other forms of communication to intimidate and spread hatred and disinformation about religious communities.
“Additional policies implemented by the Indian government to curtail religious freedom include the use of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Financial Contribution (Regulation) Act, to silence or restrict
individuals and NGOs from reporting on and combating religious persecution, and to restrict support for religious organizations and activities. Religious communities and places of worship are being targeted and surveilled, and those who have advocated for justice and the dignity of
religious communities are being silenced and detained.”
a. “In 2020 and early 2021…” In all my interactions with USCIRF to convince them about the dire situation for Hindus in Bangladesh, they always (literally 100 percent of the time) told me that they would consider only information from that one, specific year. Other data, they told me, could not be considered. Yet, when it comes to India and to supporting a specific narrative, those limits go out the window.
b. “the religiously discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)…” This is perhaps the most telling sign of USCIRF bias; specifically, that it is not the fair minded entity it claims to be. We can spend an entire session on the CAA and only scratch the surface, so I want to highlight only a few points that address USCIRF anti-India bias.
a. While there are a lot of people who have concluded that the NRC/CAA is discriminatory, that is far from settled law and opinion on it remains divided. The Indian Supreme Court refused to stop its implementation or concur with claims that it violated India’s secular constitution. Yet, USCIRF writes blithely as if there is but one “correct” opinion on this.
b. Had USCIRF staff taken the time to read the Act—and they have legal experts on staff—they would have read that the CAA applies to illegal migrants only. This social ill and the complexity of grappling with its solution is something that we Americans should certainly recognize. Those affected by the law do not have the same set of protections enjoyed by citizens and legal migrants. Nor does it matter how long they have been residing in India illegally. In fact, for quite some time, the only issue raised here regarding deportation of illegals was the difficulty of identifying and deporting so many people, not issues of whether or not they belong here.
c. As a longtime human rights activist for Hindus facing violent ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh and to a lesser extent Pakistan, I understand the CAA to be a method by which refugees from that brutality can find safe haven. I’ve spent a lot of time in Bangladesh and elsewhere and cannot for the life of me figure out why anti-CAA protestors think Muslims need special protection from the governments of Bangladesh or Pakistan. Moreover, the law does nothing to change their status but only keeps them where they are as opposed to oppressed refugees.
d. In February 2020, I wrote a friend of the court brief for one of the petitions filed in favor of the CAA and in it, talked about what it means for people whose oppression has been ignored for decades. In fact, the CAA is the first time any Indian government has formally acknowledged that Hindus face bigotry in Bangladesh.
e. But again, USCIRF has ignored all that, pretended that only one opinion on it exists, and built its argument on that fallacy.
c. As I said, we could take up a whole session on that issue alone, so let’s move on with “in conjunction with the government’s proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) requiring residents to provide
proof of citizenship, could subject Muslims and others to statelessness, deportation, and prolonged detention.” I can’t speak for anyone from USCIRF, but I was in Assam when there was an attempt to implement the NRC (and I didn’t see any of them there), so they might want me to educate them.
a. First, someone needs to tell me why requiring people to provide proof of citizenship, especially when a country is trying to get a handle on the massive numbers of illegal migrants is a horrendous religious freedom violation. We’re having the same debate here with ID cards when voting—and people make arguments on both sides; but again, USCIRF merely takes as whole cloth the arguments of one set of people and then uses that unsupported opinion to build its own case. I also was in Assam before and saw the social unrest and concern over the ongoing flood of illegal migrants from Bangladesh, who were having terrible impacts on the people, culture, and environment. This often led to violence (as when I was with Bodo tribesmen), and the NRC was designed in part to stop that.
b. And so when they sought to implement the NRC in Assam, they found that—and this should not have been a surprise to anyone here or there—there were real problems with the records. People who were definitely citizens—and this was the same regardless of religion—that the process excluded, as well as some known illegals who were included. At that point, the Assam government stopped the process and started trying to fix it with the help of the population there. But I can tell you that it did not result in “statelessness, deportation, and prolonged detention” as USCIRF fear mongered. In fact, I’d like to look back and see where the hell else has USCIRF recommended sanctions on a country for what they fear “could” happen—and not even a comment on whether it’s even likely.
c. The Factsheet also takes India to task for “anti-conversion” and “anti-cow slaughter” laws. Regarding the first, coercive conversions are a real problem in India, and if USCIRF gave a damn about how things looked from inside India, they’d know that. If the different faith communities would sit down and agree on what is acceptable and what is coercive, they might be able to arrive at something that works. And the Christian and Muslim communities are at least as much at fault for that as the Indian government. Again, USCIRF ignores history. Prior to the current regime, the government offered no protection to victims of coercive conversion; and there was a great deal of anger about that. All the Modi government was doing was to try to re-set things and look for that inter-communal dialogue. But that has become less and less likely with the continual demonization of Modi and the BJP.
d. I’m not sure why they think anti-cow slaughter laws are an offense against religious freedom. If they bothered to take a ride around cities like Kolkata and elsewhere, they would have seen that there is no problem buying beef, either from a butcher or from a street vendor selling “beef biryani.” I also have seen the way older cows are smuggled into Bangladesh and even recorded one such incident before chasing the smugglers myself. And if this is so “terrible,” I want to know why USCIRF hasn’t condemned those European countries that have outlawed Jewish ritual slaughter, which is an offense against religious freedom. Oh that’s right, neither Jewish nor Hindu lives matter to them.
e. Finally, what they did not include in this broadside is equally instructive. In their report recommending India as being among the worst countries in the world for religious freedom, it said that “In February [2020], the worst Hindu-Muslim mob violence in more than three decades erupted in Delhi. More than 50 people died and 200 others were injured, mostly Muslims.” They neglected to mention the 30-year old mob violence they were referring to in their statement. Was it the 1992 Mumbai riots that killed 275 Hindus? Maybe it was the murder of around 300 Kashmiri Pandits in 1989-1900; or the subsequent mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits that has been called the worst case of ethnic cleansing in India since Partition. Even the 2002 mob arson of the Godhra train killed more people than USCIRF’s best example. If it can’t get basic data correct, how can we give any credence to the conclusions it draws?
USCIRF has recommended that the State Department declare India a country of particular concern five times, including the last three years, using the most extreme and unequivocal language possible. Why, then, has the US State Department never once accepted their recommendation about India? Let me repeat: the US State Department has never once declared India a country of particular concern despite USCIRF strongly recommending they do five times.
There’s at least a couple reasons for that, starting with the fact that USCIRF’s arguments are weak and unconvincing, especially if you have access to a wider range of information than USCIRF uses. State also uses USCIRF as only one of its sources for the decisions it makes. More important are the summaries and specifics it receives from its embassies around the world and from other operatives. And that makes sense, because these people are there on the ground, not meeting with interested parties in an office in Washington.
I wish USCIRF’s India problem was simply a matter of bad information. More than that, it has a real thing about India. In 2014, I thought we might have a chance to start repairing the relationship. So, I reached out to the new Modi government and to USCIRF chair Katrina Lantos Swet and arranged a meeting in Maryland. To Dr. Swet’s credit, she flew down for this meeting alone, and on her wedding anniversary; so I was hoping for a successful meeting. But those hopes soon faded as Dr. Swet kept hammering home the point (quite angrily) that India doesn’t let USCIRF come there and assess the situation; and kept saying that the only other country that does that is Cuba. Yet, I wondered why USCIRF has never recommended Cuba as a CPC, though its official policy is atheism and there is restricted religious freedom. Neither could I imagine North Korea, China, or Saudi Arabia giving USCIRF the unfettered access they demand from India.
I tried to explain that concern to the Indian government, and tried to explain to Swet that Indian resistance to this sort of foreign intervention smacked very much of the British Raj and its attitude toward India, I made several proposals by which USCIRF staff could come to India in ways that would not do that. But USCIRF was adamant that it had to be official and unrestricted, and that they would see who they wanted to see rather than try to get a more comprehensive view.
One final reason why USCIRF is clueless about India. It accepts without evidence the anti-India claims about Indian persecution of Muslims and Christians. If it had any sense, it might instead pay attention to a recent study by the highly prestigious Pew Research Center. This authoritative body talked to Christians and Muslims in India, and for each group, fully 89 percent said that they were totally free to practice their faith without any problem. If I was still teaching, and a student brought me work that accepted unsubstantiated stuff uncritically but ignored authoritative studies, I’d suggest they take another look or likely fail.
Now I want to talk about Bangladesh.
For years, I have been supplying USCIRF with evidence of the ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh. And over the years, more and more organizations and people on Capitol Hill have come to see it. And yet, USCIRF has never once recommended Bangladesh to be a country of particular concern. Even one of Bangladesh’s most noted scholars, Dr. Abul Barkat of Dhaka University has said that Hindus will not survive in Bangladesh past mid-century. The Bangladeshi government has claimed that the reduction of Hindus from a fifth of the country to a fifteenth is the result of “voluntary” migration and high Muslim birth rates.
I agree with the voluntary migration only if we agree that a person running from a hungry tiger is doing so voluntary.
Demographers and others have demonstrated multiple times that the drop in population could not come from these or other demographic factors. And in my book, A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing: the Murder of Bangladesh’s Hindus, I devote the better part of a chapter to the work of demographer and veteran of Bangladesh’s War of Independence, Bimal Pramanik. We spent time together in his Kolkata office while he ran from one pile of papers to another showing me how it’s impossible to attribute the 49 million missing Hindus to anything but targeted ethnic cleansing; and I have spent the last two decades almost documenting those attacks and the Bangladeshi government’s culpability. I would send the evidence to USCIRF year after year. Then, year after year, they would give me their excuse for why they did not call out Bangladesh.
Then came 2020, and I had good reason to expect this year would be different. First, at the end of 2019, the US House and Senate both passed resolutions condemning blasphemy laws, and both called out Bangladesh and Pakistan as the two nations who were the most egregious in their use of these laws for social control and minority persecution. Around the same time, USCIRF came out with its own study that also condemned the same two nations for using blasphemy laws to curtail religious freedom.
Even the pandemic, it seemed, was not going to slow the wheels of justice this time. I got back from Bangladesh the last day of February 2020 as COVID cases were sprouting here in Chicago. Shortly after that, we went into lockdown and so did Bangladesh. But it wasn’t long before my associates there started telling me about increased attacks on them and their communities. I started gathering information and by later than year put together a damning spreadsheet of how Bangladesh was using the cover of the pandemic to intensify attacks on Hindus.
I looked at targeted anti-Hindu attacks during Bangladesh’s first COVID lockdown, and found that during the 66 day period (March 25 to May 30), there were 85 multi-crime, serious and targeted attacks on Hindus that the government refused to prosecute—even while it enforced social distancing rules otherwise. If anyone was arrested, it was the Hindu victim, not the perpetrator. And I want to be clear that there were about 50 more than that, and I’m sure some or all of them happened, but I report incidents only when I can confirm them with at least two independent witnesses or have seen them myself. Many of these also involved Bangladesh’s Digital Security Act that allows the government to seize people on the complaint of a single individual that they were offended by something online. That, too, was something USCIRF previously noted as contrary to religious freedom. My spreadsheet was ironclad—and I warrant a hundred times more so than what they used to condemn India. Even after all the evidence, I had two columns specifically for USCIRF. One was titled, “AS PER IRFA STANDARD: ACTS ARE ENGAGED IN BY MEMBERS OF THE GOVERNMENT OR TOLERATED BY IT; INCLUDES GOVERNMENT AND POLICE ENGAGING IN ADDITIONAL CRIMES OF COVER UP, BRIBERY, COMPLICITY IN RETALIATION AGAINST VICTIMS, ETC. WITHOUT ANY ACTION TAKEN FOR THEIR OFFENSES.” The other was titled, “SYSTEMATIC, ONGOING, EGGREGIOUS.” All of this was done so USCIRF could see how they fit its criteria for a CPC.
Of course, they ignored the truth again. Buried at the back of their report was this weak statement: “” For example, USCIRF received reports of numerous anti-Hindu incidents in Bangladesh that occurred with impunity, particularly during COVID-19 lockdowns.” But the only other times Bangladesh was mentioned was to praise it for taking Rohingya refugees or as a victim of the CAA.
That was it! I was surprised at how many times they needed to hit me over the head with a two by four before I realized they would never recognize that “Hindu lives matter.” A few days later, I published our “divorce papers” on my web site asking people to tell USCIRF how they felt:
“There was reason for optimism this year as USCIRF started reviewing material to determine Countries of Particular Concern (CPC); those with the worst record on religious freedom. At their request, we and others sent iron-clad evidence of Bangladeshi guilt. USCIRF had overwhelming evidence in hand but chose to ignore it. They listened to corporate lobbyists from Wal-Mart and elsewhere rather than to the cries of the victimized. For shame, USCIRF! Of course, it had no trouble categorizing India as a CPC, even though the worst unsubstantiated allegations against India are not nearly as severe as the real actions by Bangladesh against real people. Coming Monday: our renewed focus with the US State Department’s current evaluation of Bangladesh and other countries for its report. Also see my blog. Also feel free to let USCIRF know that it has failed to live up to its purpose and that people have taken notice. You can do so by phone (best method) at 202-523-3240. If not, click the button below to email your concern.”
Which leads to my final point: what to do now. Basically, I’ve stopped wasting my time with USCIRF. Their bias overcomes evidence every time. The key for me now will be the US State Department because what they decide is what matters. In recent session, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the nomination of Peter D. Haas as the new ambassador to Bangladesh. The State Department gives more credence to what their embassies tell them, and that is an area of focus. I have been working with Capitol Hill and State so that individuals and human rights activists I know are able to come to the embassy safely and document the atrocities against them. The continuing pandemic has made this year too soon, but we expect to start working on that in 2023.
Additionally, I am currently getting information to pertinent Senate and House committees and other legislators who have shown they recognize fact over ideology. One House member and I are working on a resolution, and with this year being an election year, I expect that will take off in 2023, too,
So I will close with the points I started with combined with what we have learned.
· I do not think USCIRF will anytime soon shed its bias against India.
· I do not think USCIRF will ignore corporate interests and recommend Bangladesh as a country of particular concern, even if it slaughters its entire Hindu citizenry.
· I do not think USCIRF is worth our time and effort. There are much more productive channels through the State Department and our embassies, and through our allies in the House and Senate.
Thank you, and I’m happy to take questions.